Why write about tango? Words cannot come close to
describing the experience of dancing. Yet I am doing it. My main goal is to
share some information and insight on how to learn and improve in this dance. I
feel that tango is a cultural treasure which most
people are still unaware of. There is a vague mystique, an appeal that many
perceive, but most do not know how to approach it. Potentially, tango is an art
form of depth and cultural significance akin to music, painting, or the best of
martial arts. But so far, there has not been a clarity
among the dancers or among the general public on how to explore that potential.
I am not a tango "master" - I still have a long way to what can be
called mastery of this dance.I am
just a serious student who over the years has pieced together a fairly coherent
vision of how to improve in this dance and how to begin tapping its unlimited
potential as an art form.It took
many errors and frustrating periods during which I was stuck and confused in
spite of studying with many of the known teachers. Much of my understanding
came from outside of the tango circles.My main objective in sharing this information and producing this website
is to help a potentially serious tango student who, like myself when I started,
intuitively perceives the possible depth of this art but does not find clear
ways to pursue it. Everything here is subject to dispute and frequent revision,
as I hope to continue learning.

Why tango?

Most tango “addicts” do not
ask themselves such a question – they know they love it, and that is why
they do it. I myself have had an urge to dance tango since 1995, and it is not
getting any weaker. But, such irrational sentiments aside, I am also interested
in understanding the underlying qualities which make
this dance so appealing. In my view, tango is valuable in any one or all of the
following three ways:

Taken in the lightest
manner, tango, as any other social dance, is a great alternative to leisure activities which center around food and drink. I personally
had always been somewhat socially uncomfortable, and did not enjoy spending
long hours in bars, restaurants or cocktail parties. The tango scene instantly
felt to me like a more natural way to come together with others. It was easier
for me to dance with people for hours than to talk with them for 5 minutes. But
even talking became easier, for tango also provided an inexhaustible topic of
meaningful conversation. To me it also seems more natural to meet people in an
environment that involved dancing – one often expresses oneself more
eloquently and more inevitably through a dance than through hours of small
talk. Before I even began to consciously realize the cultural significance of
tango, I felt like I belonged culturally in the milonga,
though I was born and grew up in Russia. It made much more sense to me to come
together with people on the basis of music and dance which
we loved, rather than on the basis of the more circumstantial workplace or
school acquaintances. Another unique feature of tango is that it is a sensual,
yet non-sexual interaction with the opposite sex. It allows one to viscerally
experience the other person’s psycho-physical being
without getting too personal. It is a great way for people to express
themselves as men and women without entering into a sexual relationship.

Another reason to dance
tango is that it can function as a therapeutic activity on many levels. First
of all, it is a light aerobic activity, relatively safe and accessible to any
age group. As such, it can already make one feel better, and it is more fun
than some other workouts. Tango is also automatically therapeutic due to the
physical connection with another human being that it involves. In the modern
culture, more and more people feel isolated and lack physical contact,
especially if they are single. Being hugged by another person for the duration
of a dance can make a big difference in one’s mood. But a much greater
therapeutic power of tango lies in how metaphorical it is of all our
relationships, and especially of the ways we relate to the opposite sex. Tango
has been justly called a three-minute love affair. Because the tango embrace is
so close and because the dance is improvised, one inevitably expresses one’s
character and relationship patterns through one’s dancing. It is not always
easy to see from the outside, but it is perceived very
clearly by one’s partner. With a little effort, one can also begin to
notice one’s own habitual attitudes and how they affect the experience of both
partners. Just becoming more aware of that can teach one a lot about one’s
relationship patterns in general, and can thus be greatly therapeutic (it has
been for me). But even more can be gained by learning how to transform one’s
patterns creatively. Tango is in a way a model relationship in which one can
experiment and learn more safely, for failing to dance a good tango is not as
scary as failing in a real-life love affair. Another therapeutic value of tango
is that it is inevitably a creative act – every dance is a spontaneous,
unpremeditated interaction. As such, it develops our creative potential, puts
us more in touch with our instincts and intuition. In today’s world, many
people do not find enough room for creativity in the workplace, and having a
more creative hobby, where one expresses oneself more freely, can make a big
difference in one’s well-being.

The greatest reason to dance
tango, in my opinion, is that it can be practiced as an evolutionary art form
– the concept that I discuss in detail in the corresponding section.
Tango is an interaction that involves our senses, our motor skills, our
instincts, our intuition, and our whole psycho-physical
being to such an extent that it can be used as a tool for a very general
development of a human being. Tango can be seen as a model relationship, a
creative interaction which can teach us deeper principles
of interacting in general. In this way, like the best of Eastern martial arts,
tango can act as an instrument of a positive transformation of an individual’s
mind, body and spirit. When practiced with this goal in mind, tango becomes a
culturally significant art form of a rare kind, improving the well-being of individuals and the overall state of culture
at once. But in order for this potential of tango dancing to manifest fully, a
correct approach to it is necessary. It started for me with the realization
that when I learned how to stand, walk and control my mind better, my dancing
became better almost automatically. But then I began to purposely try to
understand how to practice this art so that it most directly connected with my
overall positive development. It is through this approach that I ended up
experiencing the biggest improvement in both my dancing and my general well-being. This type of approach is above all what I aim to
explore in this website.